Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/105

 of the contract between the Lake Shore and the Standard. Look at it, he said, and see just what is shown. In consideration of the company giving to the railroad its entire freight business in oil, they transport this freight about ten cents a barrel cheaper than for any other customer. "The understanding was to keep the price down for the favoured customer, but up for all others, and the inevitable tendency and effect of this contract was to enable the Standard Oil Company to establish and maintain an overshadowing monopoly, to ruin all other operators and drive them out of business in all the region supplied by the defendant's road, its branches and connecting lines."

Judge Atherton was particularly hard on the portion of the contract which pledged the Standard to give the Lake Shore all its freight in return for the rebates, and for this reason: In 1883 a new road Westward was opened from Cleveland, the New York, Cincinnati and St. Louis. It might become an active competitor in transporting petroleum for customers other than the Standard Oil Company. It might establish such a tariff of rates that other operators in oil might successfully compete with the Standard Oil Company. To prevent this, the Lake Shore road, on the completion of the new road, entered into a tariff arrangement giving to it a portion of the Westward shipments of the Standard Oil Company, on condition of its uniting in carrying out the understanding in regard to rebates to the Standard Oil Company. "How peculiar!" exclaimed Judge Atherton. "The defendant, by a contract made in 1875, was entitled to all the freights of the Standard Oil Company, and yet, say the District Court, 'for the purpose of securing the greater part of said trade,' they entered into a contract to divide with the new railroad, if the latter would only help to keep the rates down for the Standard and up for everybody else."